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eBooks: Kindle v iBooks Round Two

I have now been reading books on both the Kindle and iBooks apps for several weeks. I do like iBooks and want to love it, but there are solid reasons to prefer Kindle. Reliability of synchronization is one. After a few days away in Germany, where I read two-thirds of a particular book in iBooks on the iPad, I was disappointed to find that iBooks on my iPhone was half a book behind. Although I hadn't had 3G in Germany - either on phone or pad - I had opened iBooks on both devices while connected to wifi. Such a problem has never occurred with the Kindle apps and it rather takes the gloss off the pretty iBooks interface.

The second reason is availability. Today, for the third time, I read a book review in a newspaper and tried to buy it in iBooks. Again, it was not available. Yet I could get it straightaway from Amazon.

I know it is yet early days for iBooks. Frankly, though, Apple will have to do better.